It is known to install and/or integrate photovoltaic devices and systems into commercial and residential buildings. Such systems have generally been limited to conventional roof-top based systems that may have limited photovoltaic capability and little aesthetic appeal. Conventional roof-top based systems typically depend on racking systems, which typically are not suitable, for example, for integrating into a vertical building face in an attractive and convenient manner and may have limited suitability in other configurations also.
In concentrated photovoltaic applications, conventional solar concentrating mirrors are typically used to direct broad bandwidths of solar energy onto a photovoltaic cell or solar heat transfer element. However, electromagnetic radiation of certain wavelengths reflected from the solar concentrating mirror onto the solar element may adversely affect the solar element. For example, certain wavelengths in the infrared spectrum can cause certain photovoltaic cells to undesirably increase in temperature. As a result, the photovoltaic cells may lose efficiency and degrade over time due the excessive thermal exposure. In addition, broadband mirrors which reflect visible light can be blinding at certain angles, and objectionable to some for aesthetic reasons. Broadband mirrors are also used in concentrating solar thermal panels to heat fluids, but again lack aesthetic appeal for building integration, and stray reflections can be blinding in systems that do not track the sun. Long term exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light also typically leads to premature degradation of components of the photovoltaic cell. Some solar concentrating mirrors that reflect wavelengths corresponding to the absorption bandwidth of a selected solar cell and either transmits or absorbs a major portion of light outside this bandwidth have been disclosed (see, e.g., Int. Pat. App. Pub. No. WO 2009/140493 (Hebrink et al.), published Nov. 19, 2009).